Global Africa is organizing, as part of "its meetings", a conference titled "Evaluation of Public Development Policies: Debates and Controversies," on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, at 10:00 a.m. at CEA-MITIC, UGB Saint-Louis (Senegal).
Summary For the past two decades, a method of evaluating development policies - randomized controlled trials (RCTs) - has gained prominence to the point of becoming hegemonic. It even received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2019. However, have RCTs truly "profoundly improved our ability to combat poverty in practice"? Is their supremacy scientifically legitimate, ethically satisfactory, and politically desirable? What risks are incurred by over-reliance on them?
François Roubaud François Roubaud is an economist and statistician, a research director at IRD (French Research Institute for Sustainable Development), and a member of UMR LEDa-DIAL, of which he was the director. In the field of statistics, he is the creator of the 1-2-3 surveys aimed at measuring the informal sector, which have been implemented in numerous countries in Africa, Latin America, and Asia. He is also a pioneer in incorporating modules on governance, peace, and security into official household surveys, a methodology now used for monitoring SDG 16 (on governance, justice, and peace). His research on development economics focuses particularly on the labor market and the informal economy, governance and institutions, evaluation, and the political economy of development policies. He is the author of numerous articles and publications on these topics. The latest book he co-edited is Randomized Control Trials in the Field of Development: A Critical Perspective, IRD Editions, 2022.